Goldman Sachs is the company whose pay structure I chose to research this week. I was interested in learning more about Goldman Sachs because they are one of the companies I am looking into as I look for a job after graduating college. I have recently applied for their New Analyst program located in Dallas, Texas, and I am excited about the opportunities the company could provide me in the start of my career.
Goldman Sachs is a big-name player in the financial services industry and a multinational investment management firm. The company has consistently ranked high on Fortune’s list of Best Companies to Work For and pay has been a contributing factor to that. In regards to their compensation model, Goldman Sachs follows a job-based pay structure. According to their CFO in 2019, “Our philosophy remains to pay for performance.” This pay structure seems to line up well with the company’s objectives because pay is based on the value of the work being performed, and those who produce more valuable work are rewarded through higher compensation. Like most other investment banks, Goldman Sachs has a hierarchical structure, which would make sense why they follow a job-based pay structure. This structure allows the company to clearly define compensable factors based on the skills, knowledge, and responsibilities required of each job, and then compensate accordingly in regards to value.
I would agree with the job-based structure Goldman Sachs is currently using and say it is the most appropriate one for the type of organization they are. Because Goldman Sachs is a very large, international, company, a job-based structure allows them to clearly define and categorize jobs in their hierarchy such as “analyst,” “associate,” “vice president,” “managing director” and “partner.”
